[04/12/13]
[eOne/GoodFight]

Dark Sermon are a Floridian modern death metal band. Taking inspiration from the likes of The Black Dahlia Murder, later Job For a Cowboy and Behemoth at times, they have a sound that is aggressive and melodic. Those bands are all highly regarded within their own communities, but their brand of metal is done by so many other bands that it can be tiring at times, and finding a good band among those can be quite difficult. Dark Sermon’s debut effort In Tongues is their try at this sort of sound, and it succeeds in some ways, but it also falls into some trappings of the genre.

Dark Sermon are an up and coming death metal band from Tampa, Florida. Their sound is reminiscent of The Black Dahlia Murder, Job For a Cowboy and Behemoth. Basically, constant heavy fast riffs with some ambience thrown in. Their debut album In Tongues will be released on the 12th of April via Nuclear Blast in Europe, and eOne/GoodFight in the US. That’s some pretty strong backing for a debut album, so what do Dark Sermon actually sound like? Thankfully, they’ve released a video for the title track of their upcoming album. You can check it out below.

Within the Ruins

Elite

[02/26/13]
[eOne/Good Fight]

It should come as no surprise to fans of Within the Ruins that their most recent album, Elite, is the epitome of “Riff City”. The band’s third major label full length doesn’t reinvent the wheel they rolled in on with 2009’s Creature, but rather continues rolling on it remaining in the comfort lane the whole time. By incorporating new tunings, an even more technical approach to song writing, and little gimmicks like Gojira/Morbid Angel-esque pick scrapes, they have given themselves a little more reason to remain relevant continuing on with their signature sound.

The Chariot

One Wing

[08/28/12]
[Good Fight Music]

The Chariot are one of the few bands where you can feel the emotion they put into their music as much live as on their records. They are constantly referred to as one of the greatest live act in music and their fans are every bit as rabid and unpredictable as they are. Seeing The Chariot live is nothing short of a gift and a privilege, because the experience they give their fans is unlike anything experienced before. Their latest offering, One Wing, capitalizes on the successful quartet of albums that came before it, not only by refining their signature brand of hardcore, but also expanding on it and adding elements many people would have never thought would end up on one of their records. Just as frontman Josh Scogin said, “let’s get weird.”

It’s always a hell of a lot of fun when The Chariot start gearing up to release a new album. It barely feels like any time at all since Long Live came out, but it was actually 2010 (indeed, it made my best of list that year), and so it’s about time for another slice of their particular brand of chaotic metalcore.

The build up to that release produced one of my favourite music videos ever: the live, almost seven-minute continuous take of ‘David de la Hoz‘, which was chock full of awesome, and it’s back to that same studio we are taken for this look at an experimental piano-driven song called ‘Speak‘, which has satiated my appetite in the same way for the new album, which is to be called One Wing.

The video is full of details – there are boards, instruments and various nick-nacks everywhere, but we are explicitly told that ‘Speak‘ will be track six on the album, and features Travis Sadler on piano. Frontman Josh Scogin pelts his lungs out here, and I’m pretty confident in saying that One Wing will be just as, if not more visceral than the band’s past exploits.

The Chariot have always been well received with their signature riff injected and feedback laden brand of metalcore as well as their over the top high-octane live shows. Typically, their albums are met with ravishing reviews and we have come to expect nothing but excellence from the quintet. So it is no surprise that we are a little more than excited when Josh Scogin spoke to altpress.com about their fifth full length effort One Wing.

In the interview he talks about the band “getting weird” and we can only speculate what he means by this. If we though Dan Smith’s guest appearance on “David De La Hoz” was weird, then what is weird to them?

“It’s kind of funny, this one’s probably the weirdest record we’ve ever done. We’re always writing, but when we officially started writing for this record, we started it off with the idea of, “Let’s get weird.” We tried not to have any rules, tried not to have any borders or boundaries but even the little ones we did have, we threw them out the window. Then when we came into the studio, the first thing we told Matt was, “Let’s get weird with it.” [Laughs.] We just want it to be interesting for us—not that our other records aren’t—but it’s very eclectic and a very different record for us. The energy and high pace is still there but it’s always a building process.

With Long Live, we were very impulsive. We’d come in with a finished song, but if we felt like something could be better, we’d change it and never look back. With this one we took that to the next level—we came in almost knowing that these songs were going to get more different, and as we played them and practiced them for weeks beforehand, over and over, even though no one else had heard them, we started to get bored and tired of certain parts. So when we got into the studio, it’s only natural to start feeling bored toward a part or being open to changing things, so that’s where it opens the door to get weird with it and bring something interesting to it that brings our attention back to it.

We always kind of joke that we’re all A D D, especially in this generation, and I feel like we’re the same as everyone else. The more we play it—we’ve now heard these songs thousands of times–we start to go down these paths where we don’t know where it’s going to go and we don’t know if it’s going to sound good, but at the end of the day, at least we went down that path to see what happens. Being impulsive like that has always been a strong suit of ours and something we enjoy doing, because when you hear a final product—especially doing it song-by-song—it keeps it fresh for us, and when we’re about go to that tour where we’re going to be playing new songs, it’s still as brand new as it can be.”

Needless to say, our eyes and ears will be on the look out for The Chariot’s “weirder” fifth album One Wing, due out later this year on Good Fight Music.

Son of Aurelius may be my favorite tech-death band out right now, having released the absolutely stellar The Farthest Reaches last year. Now, here at the fourth quarter of 2011, they’ve released this new pre-production track they’ve released via their youtube, and allow me to tell you – nay, show you – that it is magnificent!

It sounds like there are going to be a lot of new elements on the new record based on this pre-pro track. The drums are less crazy, which, in all honesty, is a pretty good thing, considering they were off-the-wall bonkers on Reaches. I was able to hear some really nice parts, like the super tasteful lead guitar near the end, which shows their emphasis on melody rather than super-tech is retained. The same is also said for Max Zigman’s bass lines, as they are beautiful. This small snippet is enough to make me want this album with relentless anticipation. We will let you know if there is any more news.

So yeah, it’s been four years since we’ve heard from Nashville noise-merchants Today Is The Day with their last effort Axis of Eden, but they’re back with a vengeance with their new album Pain Is A Warning – and you can hear the track “Death Curse” over at Metalsucks reet now.

The album, which was produced by the musical super-being that is Kurt Ballou is out today via Black Market Activities/Good Fight Music. Thoughts?

It’s about time that this band of metalcore do-rights put a music video out (If one exists, I surely don’t know about it).

This or The Apocalypse have released their Sons of Nero-directed music video for their song “Charmer,” which is off of this years’ Haunt What’s Left. This is a great band that actually knows what it takes to make some good metalcore, so check them out, lest you thrive on not knowing any better.

Haunt What’s Left is out now on everyone’s favorite up-and-coming metal label Good Fight Music.

Today I was scrolling through my Facebook updates only to find that The Chariot has uploaded a new track titled “The Audience” from their newest record on their Myspace! I was never a fan of The Chariot until I saw their very intense live performance with Norma Jean. Their older work seems to be hit and miss with me, but their most recent album Wars and Rumors of Wars was practically flawless. Their sound evolved to something much more fluid and concrete while maintaining the chaos that they’ve always been known for.

The newest track seems to continue right from where they left off, and that’s a good thing. In addition, they’ve signed to Good Fight Music! This is exciting, as Good Fight Music is a rather new label (compared to Nuclear Blast, Metalblade, Century Media, etc.) that enjoys the company of bands like The Contortionist, Son of Aurelius, and I Am Abomination. Given their latest release, plus the new label signing I’m completely stoked for Long Live, due out on November 23rd!

If you’ve never given The Chariot a chance, give this video a listen and enjoy one of the muddiest head-whipping breakdowns you’ve heard.